U.S., China Drive Cannes' Market Attendance To All-Time Record

MADRID - Hikes in attendance from the U.S and China swelled the ranks of the 2014 Cannes Market to 11,806 participants, an all-time record.

In all, U.S. execs represented 18% of total attendance, up 4% on 2013, and the single biggest Market contingent.

China's presence was much smaller, 3.5% of attendees, but, with the U.S., as Variety anticipated, the Cannes Market's biggest growth driver, up a muscular 22% on 2014.

France (15% of attendees) and the U.K. (10%) were the second and third largest presences, but Central and Southern America now send nearly as many executives (4%) as Germany (5%).

This year's Cannes Market also rolled the near global emergence of film industries, or at least filmmakers intent on building national production sectors.

Up from 109 in 2013, 116 countries were represented at the Market, including, absent in 2013, Bahrain,Brunei, Burma, Iraq, Kurdistan, Laos, Mauritius and Syria.

Denmark, Ecuador, the Philippines- joined by France's Marseilles - ran pavilions for the first time at the International Village.

In anther signs of still continuous growth at Cannes, attendance at the Cannes Market Producers workshop ramped up 10%, the biggest single largest step-up since the Producers Network launched in 2011.

Statistical growth also hints at one of the major problems facing the international independent industry: Competition. A mind-boggling 5,200 films were presented at the Cannes Market, 3,100 completed films, all jostling for sales, often to a contracting arthouse market. Though the presence of buyers remained strong at 1,927, more producers look likely to turn to dedicated festival distribution or VOD - with a 33% increase in execs - to seek some kind of international return on their titles.

"Through our survey, we asked our participants to define the 2014 Marche du Film and the most frequent keywords were 'successful,' 'busy,' 'smooth' and 'stimulating,'' said Jerome Paillard, the Cannes Market exec director.

Paillard also confirmed that new initiatives Next, a networking and debate industry section focusing on the future of cinema, and Marche Mixers, themed networking events, which kicked off with a fantastic Mixer dedicated to the genre industry, were "slated to become Cannes traditions."